Looking beyond disabilities

It seems simple to look beyond a wheelchair or hearing aid when searching for a whiz at crunching numbers or sorting mail.

Still, the job market is tough for people with disabilities.

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LISA WEAVER/Special

Christopher Coleman’s doctors thought that he would never talk or even think for himself. Now, he’s founder of his own ministry and is a sought-after motivational speaker.

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Bobby Dodd Institute

Catherine White, now a supervisor at the Atlanta VA Medical Center, went for years without a job because she believed that employers wouldn’t hire her because she’s a triple amputee. ‘Just getting that negative feedback from them made me want to give up,’ she said.

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AutoTrader.com

AutoTrader.com employee Eric Walker makes sure that break rooms are stocked. Before landing a job at the company, he was worried that his disability would prevent him from finding a job.

“We have big numbers of folks who are unemployed and want to work,” said Wayne McMillan, president and CEO of the Bobby Dodd Institute, which trains people with disabilities and helps put them to work.

The picture could worsen as the economy and other factors make job-hunting harder for everyone while, at the same time, the number of people with disabilities, according to some experts, is on the rise due to war injuries and aging baby boomers.

The good news is that metro Atlanta companies are finding that being open to hiring workers with disabilities means they draw from a wider pool of candidates.

Eric Walker, for example, is on time, friendly and not afraid to jump in when work gets hard, said Rebecca Watson, who until recently was a vice president at AutoTrader.com, a company controlled by Cox Enterprises, which owns The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

At AutoTrader.com, Walker makes sure breakrooms have plenty of coffee, soup and knives, and he keeps close watch over the inventory of office supplies.

“He’s meticulous,” said Watson, who added that Walker is popular among his co-workers.

Even so, there was a time when Walker worried about finding a job because of his developmental disability.

The Georgia Department of Labor estimates that one in five Georgians has a disability of some sort.

“It could be anything from missing the end of one finger to being a quadriplegic,” said Bobby Pack, deputy commissioner of rehabilitation services with the Georgia Department of Labor.

Catherine White was unemployed for three years and believed that employers were reluctant to hire her because she’s a triple amputee.

“I was depressed at one time,” she said. “Just getting that negative feedback from them made me want to give up.”

Now, after more than five years at the Atlanta VA Medical Center (VAMC), she’s not only advanced to a supervisory position at the switchboard but has finished a class in medical insurance billing and coding.

“I’m trying to get as far as I can go,” she said. “I don’t want to stop, because I was held back for so long,” she said.

“Catherine is doing a great job,” and “has responded very quickly” to anything that is asked of her, said Gary Compton, assistant chief for health administration service at the Atlanta VA Medical Center.

And what of the disability that White thought made her invisible to prospective employers for so long?

Compton said he was on the job for several months, e-mailing and phoning White with questions, before he realized she had a disability.

Research has shown that workers with a disability keep their jobs longer than other employees. McMillan said that’s partly because those workers value their jobs so much.

“It’s the American dream,” he said. “To be without a job in this country is an unhappy place to be.”

“Everyone has something to offer,” said Christopher Coleman of Acworth.

Doctors once thought Coleman would never talk or even think for himself because of cerebral palsy.

Placed in a school for the disabled, where he got little attention, Coleman taught himself to read using his twin sister’s textbooks while his family slept. By the time he graduated from high school, Coleman was ranked fifth in a class of 360.

Now he’s the founder of his own ministry and is a sought-after motivational speaker.

“When you don’t tap into the wisdom and knowledge of the disabled community, you run a great chance of not finding the missing piece in the company,” Coleman said in an e-mail.

As for Walker, he’d like to stay at AutoTrader.com until he retires. Like White at the Atlanta VA Medical Center, he’s taken on more responsibility since joining the company.

“I like being with nice people, for one thing,” Walker said, adding that the job “keeps me busy and makes the day go by faster.”

“I’d like to challenge every employer to consider hiring someone with a disability,” McMillan said. “People want to judge a book by its cover and they’re missing a gold mine.”